Friday, September 11th was my birthday — one of those traumatizing, ends-with-zero birthdays. So I told my husband Mark that, unless he wanted me to be a basket case on nine-eleven, he’d better plan something good.

So, did Mark rise to the occasion? He sure did, as I describe in this three-verse limerick:

Happy Birthday To Me
By Madeleine Begun Kane

My nine-one-one birthday was great!
Hubby Mark planned a fabulous date:God of Carnage — fine play —
Four fab stars on Broadway.
Yes, I married a wonderful mate.

The brilliant and witty Lisa Casey of All Hat No Cattle is ill and facing thirty thousand dollars in medical expenses. If you can, please help her out by donating here.

Lisa’s been an outstanding contributor to the liberal politics community since before there was such a thing as blogging. If you haven’t been reading her since November 2000, you’ve been missing a ton of informative and funny stuff.

I’m proud to say Lisa and I were joint liberal web humor pioneers. We “met” when we were both nominated for About.com “Bushie” awards in the early days of the Bush administration. She’s a good friend and a great progressive!

New Hampshire’s Senator Judd Gregg, a big “majority rules” fan back when Republicans held the majority, has suddenly become a minority rights advocate. I just can’t imagine why.

Way back when, Gregg was enthused about using filibuster-proof reconciliation rules to pass ANWR drilling legislation:

… “The point, of course, is this: If you have 51 votes for your position, you win,” Gregg told his Senate colleagues on the floor.

He added, “Reconciliation is a rule of the Senate (that) has been used before for purposes exactly like this on numerous occasions… Is there something wrong with majority rules? I don’t think so.”

Responding to the argument that it’s wrong to use reconciliation on a domestic oil drilling measure, Gregg concluded, “We are using the rules of the Senate as they are set up to be used, and that happens to be the rule of the Senate.”

Of course now that there’s a Democratic majority, Gregg has a rather different opinion and is leading the Republican fight against passing health care reform under reconciliation rules:

Sen. Judd Gregg has hundreds of procedural objections ready for a healthcare plan Democrats leaders want to speed through the Senate.

Gregg (N.H.), the senior Republican on the Budget Committee, told the Hill in a recent interview that Republicans will wage a vicious fight if Democrats try to circumvent Senate rules and use a budget maneuver to pass a trillion dollar healthcare plan with a simple majority. […]

Gregg said that Republicans could file “hundreds” of points of order objections to the bill, each one requiring 60 votes to waive.

“We are very much engaged in taking a hard look at our rights under reconciliation,” Gregg said. “It would be very contentious.”